Friday, May 01, 2009

Say yes to a real life ambition

The first graders in Ms. N's class are doing a unit on Australia. I do a pretty decent Australian accent (as long as the Australian is a drunk and very excited Steve Irwin), so Ms. N invited me to her class to read a book on koalas and talk to the kids about the local fauna, all in character. I thought it went all right, though as with everything in my life the event suffered from poor to no planning. For example, Ms. N asked me, as if I were a real visitor the kids didn't know, my name. I stared in blank panic for a couple of seconds before blurting, "Uh... Cassowary Brisbane?" Smooth!

Ms. N was looking even lovelier than usual, if that's possible, in a short-sleeved pink dress. She has said to me, jokingly, on a few occasions since our conference in Arizona that she's "going through withdrawal" from not hanging around me and feels "deprived" without me making jokes constantly. This cannot mean anything more significant than she enjoyed my company as a coworker, and it would be very bad for my health to become fruitlessly enamored of yet another gorgeous woman who happens to like talking to me occasionally.

In reality, women like her just don't settle for guys with my... features. She's a literate, funny, Ivy League-educated goddess, while I am a witty curmudgeon who looks like a hobbit with Down syndrome. (In the past, people have said I resemble Tobey Maguire, but now that I think about it, he looks like a hobbit with Down syndrome too.) It's ridiculous of me to even be writing about this. In fact, I have to go.